Check out the below guide on the Minions System to learn everything you need to know about Minions.
Table of Contents:
- Minion System – Overview
- First Minion Quest
- How to Obtain [Minion Card Database]
- Special Hidden Minions
- Attractor Minions
- Rewards for Adventures
- Gaining Better Rewards
- Minion Stamina
- Adventure Cooldown Timers
- Aventurine
- Other Information
Minion System – Overview
Minions are a new feature to RIFT that came with the Nightmare Tide expansion. The idea behind them is to collect Minion Cards and then send them on Adventures that reward you with notoriety, minion experience, artifacts, dimension items/keys or crafting/gathering materials. There’s even some valuable minion-only drops like Attainium Crystals used in upgrading gear of all tiers.
First Minion Quest
RIFT Minions NPC Location Tempest Bay
You can get your first minion card “Stofie” from a quest in Sanctum, Meridian, Tempest Bay or at the Atragarian Well in Goboro Reef.
There’s also 5 Minion Cards that cost 1 platinum each that can be found under the RIFT Store (default key “]“) -> Pets -> Minions.
General Functionality
The default hotkey to access Minions is ‘v‘. That was originally the ‘Look Behind’ hotkey. You can change this hotkey by hitting your ESC key and going to Keybindings -> UI Toggles -> Minions.
- To select an Adventure, click on an Adventure Card and it will go into your ‘middle’ Adventure slot.
- Next, select a Minion by clicking on a Minion Card in the bottom-left hand corner.
- Once both are selected and your Minion has enough stamina to go on the Adventure, the ‘Send Now’ button in the middle of the UI will light up. Click on it to send your Minion on an adventure.
- Minions currently on adventures will appear in the bottom-right hand corner.
General Minion Information
- Minions are shared amongst all your characters per cluster.
- They can currently level up to 25. [r]
- Minion rarity color (blue, purple/etc) has no effect on XP gained, attributes, stats, stamina or difficulty to acquire. [r]
- You can collect all Minion Cards. There’s no limit to how many you can collect, but you can only have one of each Minion Card collected.
- Current maximum amount of Minion Slots is 6. (The Nightmare Digital Edition packs do not provide you with an extra slot above the 6 Minion Slot cap. It simply gives you an extra slot from within that 5-slot cap.) [r]
- When you go on an Adventure, the ‘Adventure slot’ will gain a new Adventure card.
- Adventures reset each day at 4am Server Time (PST/PDT for NA; GMT for EU). [r]
Any ‘rules’ on Minion cards only apply to normal Minion Cards. If you obtain any of the ‘hidden’ minion cards, they can have various attributes, stat growth and stamina. I.e. the Minion Card: Drekanoth of Fate has Earth, Life, Death, Hunting, Artifact and Assassination attributes. [r]
Minion Slots
You can have up to 6 Minion Slots. Each Minion Slot costs more Credits over time:
- Slot 1: Free
- Slot 2: 600 Credits (540 for Patrons)
- Slot 3: 650 Credits (585 for Patrons)
- Slot 4: 700 Credits (630 for Patrons)
- Slot 5: 750 Credits (675 for Patrons)
- Slot 6: 800 Credits (720 for Patrons)
(Thanks to Kiera Bacon, Takame and David for the info!)
Attributes
Most Minion Cards have 1 or 2 attributes with special ‘hidden’ minion cards having more. Matching attributes of your Minion to the attributes of your Adventure card will provide bonuses to loot roll (better chance of greater rewards).
Attributes Sum
If both your minion’s attributes match the adventure’s attributes then it is the sum.- Gingers
Example: If you have a Fire + Artifact Adventure and you have two Minions: one with 10 Fire and one with 8 Fire + 8 Artifact, the latter will give you a better loot roll (16 vs 10).
How to Obtain
There’s a large variety of ways to obtain Minion Cards. When you receive one, simply consume it from your inventory to add it to your collection.
- From RIFT Store (default key “]“) -> Pets -> Minions. These can be obtained with platinum, Credits or Void Stones. Some have requirements such as Nightmare Tide faction notoriety.
- Crafted. Check the RIFT Store -> Crafting -> [Profession] and tick the ‘Minions’ filter to easily find the recipes.
- Artifact Set Rewards.
- Various Achievement Rewards.
- Dropped from Lockboxes. (such as the Cobalt Crabnarok Supply Crate).
- Nightmare Tide Puzzle rewards when doing them more than once.
- Open World Drops.
- Nightmare Rift drops in your Rift Loot Bag.
There are probably other ways to obtain them as well.
Minion Card Database
You can check out RiftGrate’s Minion Card Database here with information on how to obtain the numerous Minions in the game.
If you know of any Minion Cards not in the database, it would be greatly appreciated if you could contact me using the contact form here with any information you can provide! Thank you!
Special Hidden Minions
There are special hidden minions out there with more than two attributes! These are special minions with strange stats: a few of these have “unusual combinations of attributes, stat growth, and stamina on them”. [r]
Where to find them? Each one has special ‘hidden’ conditions you must meet to obtain them. For a full list of hidden minion cards and where to find them, head on over to RiftGrate’s Minion Card Database and go to the ‘Hidden Minions’ tab for a full list. Some examples below:
Hidden Minion Card: Drekanoth of Fate
The Minion Card: Drekanoth of Fate has Earth, Life, Death, Hunting, Artifact and Assassination attributes. It is found by performing a specific set of hidden conditions. [r]
The card starts with a value of 1 for all attributes and remains that way until Level 25 (max level) where all attributes increase to a value of 12 each. Thanks to Ahov for the information!
Obtaining the Minion Card: Drekanoth of Fate
It has to do with the tooltip “Only the one percent will ever gaze upon my full potential”. Eorer on the forums found out that you need to have completed “Scraping The Threads of Fate” achievement from the Tier 3 Level 60 Storm Legion Bindings of Blood raids which gives you “The One Percent” title.
You must also have the “The One Percent” title active by going to your Character window (default key “c“) -> Titles and making it your active title.
Enter the Rhen of Fate Level 65 Tier 1 10-man sliver (can do this solo) to get the card. The sliver is located at /setwaypoint 6362 4228. You will need Omen Sight (Guardian) or Quantum Sight (Defiant) buff up to see the portal. Entering the Rhen of Fate with “The One Percent” title active gives you the card.
Hidden Minion Card: Ra’Aran of Fate
The Minion Card: Ra’Aran of Fate has Air, Fire, Water, Diplomacy, Harvesting and Dimension attributes.
Tooltip states: “Only after dodging many waves will my full potential be reached!”
Obtaining the Minion Card: Ra’Aran of Fate
Noshei has posted information about how they got the Ra’Aran of Fate hidden minion card. It seems you need to kill Magicillian in the Bindings of Blood: Maelforge encounter (Level 60 Tier 3 20-man raid) and then have someone click the orb that teleports you to the Maelforge encounter. Everyone in the raid gets the card at that point. [r]
Note: You will need the “Hopsadaisical” achievement to get the card. Found under Achievements -> Raids -> RIFT: Storm Legion -> Bindings of Blood. Thanks to Beariepoo, Chickie and Nephilim for the info!
Hidden Minion Card: Fluffy
The Minion Card: Fluffy has Death and Assassination attributes.
Tooltip states: “The Destroyer of Worlds; Fueled by Tears”
Obtaining the Minion Card: Fluffy
Simply enter a warfront and summon the Fluffy companion pet, and then win that warfront to have the Minion Card: Fluffy appear in your Rift Loot Bag.
Note: This must be the Fluffy companion pet that you gain as a random drop from warfronts. It seems the Carnival Fluffy companion pets (like Breezy Fluffy) do not work.
Thanks to Voltaren09, Arkanja and Karthax for the information!
Head on over to RiftGrate’s Minion Card Database and go to the ‘Hidden Minions’ tab for a full list.
Attractor Minions
Attractor Minions
Attractor Minions are a special kind of minion that attracts new adventures temporarily in each deck when the Attractor Minion is in an active minion slot.
- Attractor Minions are denoted by the magnet icon in the top-right corner of their card.
- Their flavor text tells you how many adventures they can add per adventure deck and what the reward type will be for those adventures.
- New adventures are added in a random location to each of your adventure decks as long as your have the Attractor Minion in an active minion slot (i.e. on an Adventure/not-claimed).
The maximum number of adventures they unlock is included in their flavor text. However, they start off only unlocking 1. You gain more up to the max number as the Attractor Minion levels up. The actual amount of additional adventures an Attractor Minion can unlock in each adventure deck is shown when you hover over the magnet icon in the top-right corner of the minion card.
Rewards for Adventures
You can gain a variety of rewards for adventures.
- Attainium Crystals have a higher chance of dropping from 8hr and 10hr Adventures although the 5min and 15min Adventures can also get you them. These are used for upgrading a large variety of items from all tiers/types of gear (crafting, dungeon, raid/etc) such as armor, weapons, accessories and even runes.
Minion Experience
All Adventures give Minion Experience although the 1min Adventures only give Minion Experience.
- There’s a 5% Minion Experience Bonus for Patrons. [r]
Artifacts
Rewards artifacts. A few things to note:
- You can get any artifact in the full artifact loot table. [r]
- Chances of obtaining Bounty and Unstable artifacts are highest on 8hr and 10hr Adventures with high-star results. [r]
Notoriety
Grants notoriety decrees that reward notoriety. Auto-consumed on claim. A few things to note:
- If you receive notoriety for a faction that you’ve already maxed out on, you will receive gold/platinum instead. This is why your minions might occasionally come back with gold/plat. [r]
Dimension Items and Keys
Rewards dimension items and keys. If your minion brings back a lot of dimension items, it will be found under Premium #-Star Dimension Stashes. Opening them up will provide you with several dimension items.
Hides, Fish and Meat
Rewards hides, fish and meat.
Cloth, Salvage, and Runecrafting Materials
Rewards cloth, salvaged materials and runecrafting materials.
Ore, Plants, and Wood
Rewards ore, plants and wood.
Note: Gathering and Crafting rewards are based on the level of your character that claims the reward.
Gaining Better Rewards
The quality of rewards you get from taking your Minions on Adventures is based on a loot roll that is affected by a few factors:
- Higher-attribute minions will have better loot rolls as long as you have a matching attribute between your minion and the adventure.
- Matching one or two attributes from your Minions with the attributes of the Adventure you are sending them on will provide better loot rolls.
- Longer Adventures (8hr/10hr) will provide better loot.
- For crafting/gathering, the rewards you get are based on your character’s level. I.e., claiming rewards on a low-level player on a ‘Hides, Fish and Meat’ Adventure will get you low-level hides, fish and/or meat.
Note: There is still a dice roll value that is added on top of your attribute value to determine which reward tier you get. Further information below:
Attributes Sum
If both your minion’s attributes match the adventure’s attributes then it is the sum.- Gingers
Example: If you have a Fire + Artifact Adventure and you have two Minions: one with 10 Fire and one with 8 Fire + 8 Artifact, the latter will give you a better loot roll (16 vs 10).
This is reflected in your Adventure rating.
Note: The above will increase your loot roll, but you can still end up with bad luck and get a low-rated Adventure outcome.
Single vs Dual Attributes
Is there a difference between Single and Dual Attribute Minions when going on an Adventure? Not exactly – all that matters is your attribute ‘value’. [r]
i.e. Sending an 11 Fire Minion vs a 6 Fire/5 Artifact Minion on a Fire/Artifact Adventure makes no difference. They both come up with a value of 11. If the single-attribute Minion had 12 Fire, it would have a value of 12, making it better the dual-attribute Minion in this example.
Reward Tiers Explained
There are currently 6 Reward Tiers that match the 6-Star rating, although Trion can add more Reward Tiers that still reside within the 6-Star rating.
- Basically you get a dice roll for each Adventure your Minion goes on. This is a random roll and produces a dice roll value.
- Your Minion’s matching attributes with the Adventure they are on also provides a value.
- These two values are added up.
- Reward Tiers have threshold values. If you meet that value, you get that Reward Tier.
Example:
If you take a Minion with 6 Fire on a Fire/Artifact Adventure and dice roll a 2; your total is 6+2 = 8. Let’s say there’s 6 reward tiers and tier 2 requires 7 points and tier 3 requires 9 points. You therefore get reward tier 2 for that adventure.
[Source: Dev Snedhepl]
Tip: Use the search field or sorting to find the Minion card that best matches the attributes of the Adventure you wish to go on. You can even type the element or profession attribute into the search field to get the card you want:
Minion Stamina
Each Adventure costs Stamina which is like energy for Minions. Each Minion has an amount of stamina.
The yellow ‘firebolt’ icon at the top-right hand corner of your Minion Card is your stamina whilst the same ‘firebolt’ icon to the left of Adventures are the stamina cost for that Adventure.
- Leveling up will increase your minion’s stamina every few levels.
- Minions start off with either 10 or 12 stamina. [r]
- Minions who start with 10 stamina will max out at 20 stamina at Level 25.
- Minions who start with 12 stamina will max out at 30 stamina at Level 25.
- Note: Some special ‘Hidden’ Minions might go above 30 stamina. Please refer to the ‘Special Hidden Minions’ section above.
- Your Minion’s stamina will completely fill back up from 0 stamina after 24hrs. Higher-level minions will therefore regenerate stamina at a faster rate than lower-level minions. [r]
- Stamina regens at approx. 1 stamina per hour at max level.
- Stamins regens at approx. 0.5 stamina per hour just before max level.
- Your minion does not regenerate stamina whilst they are on an Adventure, but will begin to do so as soon as they complete the Adventure (‘claim’ button pops up). [r]
- Being online or offline has no effect on Minion stamina regeneration.
Adventure Cooldown Timers
When you complete an adventure, that specific adventure will go on cooldown and won’t appear in the adventure deck until that cooldown has cleared.
- 10hr adventures have a 60min CD.
- 8hr adventures have a 120min CD.
- 15m adventures have a 30min CD.
- 5m adventures have a 15min CD.
- 1m adventures have a 15min CD.
[Source: Snedhepl]
Other information on cooldown timers:
- All CDs are cleared if you run out of cards in a deck.
- CDs begin when an adventure has completed, not when you claim it. [r] [r]
- What this means is that if you are after a specific adventure and you’ve just completed it, you’ll either need to complete/shuffle every single adventure in that deck to force it to clear its cooldown, or you will need to await the allotted time before trying to obtain the card again.
Aventurine
Aventurine is the currency that you gain when you complete Minion Adventures. These are used to pay for Hurry Costs and the 10hr Promotional Adventure.
Gaining Aventurine
You gain Aventurine from completing Minion Adventures. Dev Snedhepl has provided some information on Aventurine Gain: [r]
- 1min Adventure does not give Aventurine.
- 15min Adventures give – on average – 2 Aventurine.
- 8hr and 10hr Adventures give minimum of 10 Aventurine.
Aventurine is based on performance/rating and minion level.
8hr and 10hr Adventures with high ratings can even give ~50+ Aventurine!
Hurry Cost
The ‘Hurry’ button when on Minion Adventures will make you instantly finish that Adventure. The ‘Hurry Cost’ either costs Aventurine or Credits. The cost is a ‘step reduction’ so it decreases at certain points in time.
- Under 3min: 20 Aventurine
- Under 5min: 30 Aventurine
- Under 10min: 35 Aventurine
- Under 15min: 45 Aventurine
- Under 2hrs 30min: 180 Aventurine
- Under 4hrs: 300 Aventurine
- Under 8hrs: 400 Aventurine
Note: 10hr Promotional Adventures have a higher Aventurine cost per time limit.
Other Information
Check below for some other misc. information about Minions::
- Can’t see your Minions? Relog.
- You can resize the Minions window by hitting your ESC key and then going to Settings -> Interface -> Display and adjusting the Minions UI Scale (Percent) slider.
You can find a list of all known Minion cards and where to find them here.
RiftGrate 
Nice guide!
I have a question, I don’t know if it is better match 1 atribtue higher, o match the 2 atributes but lower. For example: And Fire Artifact adventure, which one would guive better reward: A 10 fire minion, or a 8 fire 8 artifact minion with same level?
Fire Artifact. It sums it up 8+8 if attributes match. As per Gingers: “If both your minion’s attributes match the adventure’s attributes then it is the sum.” [r]
Thanks for the question Hyakuogi! I’ll add that to the Attributes section. 😀
Thank you for the reply!!
Then, since all adventures are Element+Secondary attribute, best minions to level are planar+secondary instead planar+planar or secondary+secondary.
So, best deal are level up six diferent planar minions for each seconday attribute, to have the perfect army to match’em all ^_^.
Yep, that looks to be the case unless Trion decides to introduce the twin-attribute-type cards.
Note: Gathering and Crafting rewards are based on the level of your character that claims the reward.
Figured that one out the hard way, collecting it on my level 40 instead of 61…
More info on where to collect minion cards is appreciated.
There’s a few basic ones you can find here. It’s very much work-in-progress and only has a handful of Minion Cards at the moment.
thanx! that is a great help.
It is not like going to Wowhead pre ‘wiki’ days when one could type in minion and a list would show up. Rifthead is mostly useless even with Trion dumping in their own database info. If no one is maintaining the ‘wiki’ style database there is no real info. I upload feeds regularly to then via the log tool. I was very active on wowhead picture, comments, links etc… rifthead just doesn’t have the community…
It’s true. I’ve gotten attanium crystals from short 5-15 min missions. Usually, the loot from the mission as a whole is very lucky (a short artifact mission got me a whole bunch of rare artifacts together with the crystal).
My minion tactic is to focus on 5-15 min missions but leave five minions with 10 stamina. Then, when I’m about to log off, I send those minions on 8-10 hour missions. Of course, since I only know what the first 8 and 10 hour missions are, I need a bit of luck for the rest three missions so that their attributes match my remaining missions. Overall, I’m pretty happy with this strategy.
Nice strategy Takame! I do the same thing – just seems more useful. Hyakuogi also makes a good point. You probably want to concentrate on leveling up Element + Profession/Secondary Minion Cards since all the Adventure cards (as far as I’ve seen) are element + profession.
Oh! Interesting! I hadn’t noticed they were like that! I’ll make note of that when I assign minions to my “8-10 hour mission backbench”.
(Today, I got two attanium crystals from a 15 min artifact missions, later got three crystals from another 15 min mission.)
I’ve tried to break my minions into three sets, one set runs 8 hours over night, second set runs during the day while at work, third set I run while playing in the evenings running 1~15. Then repeat the cycle, except the stamina isn’t always back to full, so you may need to shift some minions in the groups. I am sure this will become easier with higher level and more minions to rotate in the cycle.
Could you please add the costs for each additional minion slot? I’m trying to decide how many I want to unlock after the initial one for 600 credits. I saw the post on the forums by Gingers that said the minion slots are each progressively more expensive.
The fifth slot costs 675 credits.
Thanks for the info Takame! Is that with patron discount?
I’ll try to get information on each credit cost – hopefully from players who are at different amounts of slots (so they can check the values). Is that 600 with patron discount?
600>650>700>750 without patron
Thank you Kiera for the information! 😀
Dat Mirandiral guy on the forums is silly. He knows nothing!
&
Two I found on the AH this fine morning that I didn’t see in the database.
Its good because I picked up two I didn’t have via quests for 10 credits a piece 🙂
Thanks for the info gizmovision! 😀
hey Riftgrate what happen to this event tho “Intim’s Ultimate Nightmare DE Giveaway [Ends Oct 27th] ” aint done yet? its already october 29
Hey Zweikal – Fredge (Qwake@Seastone) won the Ultimate Nightmare DE Giveaway that Intim was doing. I’ll update that article accordingly. [Results video]
anyone know of a minion chime, screen flash or something of that nature so I can spot that the minion has completed its quest? I miss it on the Date/Time UI[Alert Tray] some times for a few minutes. I did make the Alert Tray bigger in the Settings…
Don’t think there is one yet but that’s certainly a good idea for an addon or a suggestion for Trion to implement.
Does the attributes of the adventure your minion is on affect which attribute will increase when they level? A guildie suggested that if I matched one of the Minion attributes to the Adventure when the Minion will level that I have a better chance of leveling that specific attribute. I haven’t been able to duplicate that.
That doesn’t seem to be the case – at least not that I’ve seen. As for which attribute increases (the 1st or 2nd), it depends on the Minion card itself. I.e. I have a few ‘duplicates’ where they have the same 1st and 2nd attribute, but one of them will increase the 1st attribute faster than the 2nd. At the same level they are almost identical, except ‘mirrored’ (i.e. 10 Fire 5 Diplomacy vs 5 Fire 10 Diplomacy).
As far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t seem to be affected by which adventures you go on.
Thanks! I appreciate it. So it sounds like I could level a Fire Diplomacy card all on Death Artifact adventures and still end up with the same 10 Fire and 5 Diplomacy if they were the same level as the card you mentioned even though the minion never went on an adventure with Fire and Diplomacy.
Yep! I got a few cards that are close in level with mirrored attribute stats whilst only taking them on elemental-matching adventures; so the secondary attribute wasn’t matched at all.
Excellent! Thanks for the info. BTW, next time I’m on I’ll go through the list and see if I have any more, like Rough Raptor, that aren’t in the DB!
Cheers!
TY for the hard work you put into this. By far the best explanation of all things Minion related I’ve found so far. Now I’m off to get my Fluffy card!! hehe
Quick question if not too late.
If I have a purple border minion with a total Attribute score of lets say 15 fire, and a White border minion with an attribute score of 18 fire. Is it better to send out the white border minion or the purple one?
The 18-attribute-score one. The borders don’t mean anything in terms of minions. They don’t even relate to the rarity of obtaining a minion.
Thank you Khortish for the reply. For me it was counterintuitive, my brain keeps saying Purple= best. You have saved me from making a lot of mistakes with my minions.
I was under the impression that color DID matter, but only insofar as the type of attributes. What Ive found is that:
White card: single attribute, any type.
Green: two attributes, but always secondaries (no elements)
Blue: two attributes, with one element and one secondary
Purple: same as blue, but from my experience, the total “score” of the two attributes together is higher than any of the others reach. I don’t have a lot of evidence to support it, but it sure seems that way. Bloop (purple) is at 18 water and 7 diplomacy at 25. Quetzie (white) is only at 17 air at level 20.
That might be the case for some minions, but it might not apply to them all. I’m just basing it off of what the devs (specifically Snedhepl) have stated.
Sadly, it seems no more attainium for 5-15 min adv
Besides that, i found that purple minions has more stamina, and the minions from the chain for tasuil minion also have more stamina